Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.Today is a cutting-wind kind of day. A whitish-gray bitter sky kind of day, a day to stay inside kind of day with fresh coffee, darkened rooms with a fire going, tiny white fairy lights on for the only light besides. A day for homemade cinnamon buns and a hot turkey sandwich dinner planned for later. A day to rest. In pajamas or not. I chose naked. While hibernating. Hence hibernaked. My new awkward but appropriatedly inappropriate portmanteau for this snowy Friday. Hello. Welcome to my weird.
~Oscar Wilde
(Besides. Gas went up again. We're walking everywhere from now on, so we may as well hunker down. Gas is 1.45 a litre. That means it'll cost almost three hundred bucks to fill each truck so yeah. Nevermind leaving the house ever again. Like, ever. I can have groceries air-dropped. Schuyler and Batman can work from home. Sam will have to beam into his church to do Sunday service and gosh, I guess Caleb will have to buy ice cream to keep at home instead of driving up highway 99 for the good stuff. Do they do Skype AA meetings? Nevermind, Ben knows them by heart. And our next concert isn't until February so we can ride this out I suppo-
Wait, what?
I still can't hear anything. I had my face melted off last night and I'm not even sorry. I went in thinking I might die and emerged baptized brand new in liquid metal, arms full of merch because goddamn.
Goddamn.
Four bands in one show meant a five-hour concert. A terrific value for forty-five bucks a ticket in the first place and we got our favorite tables so bonus awesome. I got a seriously affectionate pat-down and a drink order within seconds so double bonus.
But then...then...Avatar happened. Oh my God, where have they been hiding? (Sweden, if you're wondering.) They were incredible. Death metal at it's finest but with a circus bent. No one told me. I squealed through their entire set, when I wasn't being hammered into the floor by it, I mean. They had costumes! And makeup. Thanks to a quick Youtube search I was expecting Mercyful Fate when we went in and left a new hardcore fan. Jesus. Why the fuck does the internet hide this stuff from me? Hail the apocalypse indeed. Also dreads. Forgot how much I love dreads.
Then Of Mice and Men happened. They were the most straightforward of the night. No costumes. No makeup. Just a band out to prove they are still heavy even though Austin is no longer with them and Aaron is doing the clean and the dirty vocals almost at the same time. He could manage it all just fine. They didn't do any power ballads, which slay me every time but I gather they wanted to prove something and they did. Also headbanging in unison is my new favorite thing. Not to do (are you mad?) but to watch. SO awesome.
Hollywood Undead was the outlier. Kind of a heavy-pop party sound with so much rap I was like...how? But they were charming enough to make it work by working the crowd so hard we didn't even realize how much fun we were having until they were done. The masks are cheesy and the fact that every women is a 'bitch' in their songs (Just. NO.) hardly distracted from watching them play off us and each other with lightning speed. Solid show.
But then the curtains opened on Maria and the blood girls and Travis (who I think is nailed to the front of the stage possibly, I need to go back and check) and I cried. Whoops but yeah. Fangirled so hard you would laugh at the pictures and video I managed to get. It's shaky and jumpy and awful but I didn't care. But honestly the whole set was too short, too smoky and too theatrical. They could have fit three more songs in rather than have huge props to change out, as Ben pointed out, through his own melted face hole. However they sounded so fucking good live and were a band I never expected to see in person that I instantly forgave the technical downsides of their set for their sheer perfection. They played Burn. And Whore. Win.
We were home by one-thirty this morning. My face is never going to grow back. I have a pentagram hoodie now, which oddly fills a hole in my wardrobe I didn't know I had but did until now. And I'm happy that I survived and didn't stay home like I threatened to yesterday. Music is transforming, restorative and life-changing. I bought some more tickets this morning for another show.
We love you, Vancouver! indeed.